Clone complex damages children, experts warn

By Sandy Smith

June 7, 2012 — 12.57pm

Are you trying to turn your child into a mini you?

Alana is six years old and has a busy day ahead competing in Toddlers and Tiaras, the US reality television series which showcases the competitive world of child beauty pageants. She sips on 'go-go juice', a sugary soft drink containing caffeine mixed by her mother to keep her buzzing through her hectic schedule of shows in the quest for stardom.

Misplaced ambition? ... beware of turning your child into a mini-you.

Few parents would resort to the tactics of the pageant mums some of whom will stop at nothing for their children to succeed, but it does illustrate the worst excesses of overzealous parenting and the misguided ambition of some parents.

Parenting experts are warning them to stop pushing their dreams and ambitions on to their children or face a raft of issues such as low self-esteem, resentment and anger from them as they grow up.

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"Parents sometimes feel the need to give opportunities to children that they otherwise didn't have," explains Clare Rowe, child and adolescent psychologist at Sydney South Child Psychology. Rowe says she is seeing this alarming trend with younger and younger children. "Perhaps financially, or due to a particular situation they were never given the chance to excel in a particular activity. Or perhaps they never 'made it' as prima ballerina due to not being good enough or training hard enough and they believe that their children will be able to succeed where they failed."

Rowe says that sometimes parents are driven by a desire to replicate their own childhood. "I am often faced with parents who have idyllic, often elaborated and false memories of their own childhood and so insist that their children will go to the same activities that they did, to the point where I know parents who will drive to the other side of Sydney just so their four-year-old can go to the same tennis coach, swim school and dance teacher that they did."

'Kirsty O'Callaghan, parenting and relationship expert at Unity-Qld, says parents need to recognise their children as people in their own right. "Our children are not moulded in our image, they are not driven by our desires or fears, our likes and dislikes and do not necessarily have the same natural talents or interests we do. There may be similarities however, our children are unencumbered by our experiences, life rules and limitations. This is to be embraced and explored."

While some parents have the Mini-Me complex, others are putting pressure on their children to live up to their expectations by cramming their schedules with activities.

Rowe believes all children should have some activities outside school because it teaches social skills, cooperation and physical fitness however she warns, "cramming your five-year-old's week with dance, tennis, swimming, piano and violin is detrimental. Kids I see like this are exhausted, and you can see it all over their faces and in their behaviour, they can't focus at school and have short temper spans. Kids whose schedules are crammed find it difficult to entertain themselves – they need an adult constantly generating the next activity rather than being able to form important skills such as make believe play and sibling interaction. Children who do too much also are losing a very important skill – the art of entertaining oneself. Where has the art of play gone?"

It is this subject of over-scheduling which captured the imagination of Carl Honoré, father and author of two books Under Pressure: Putting the Child Back in Childhood and In Praise of Slow. "We treat children like projects," he says. "We start off with a fixed idea of what we want our child to be when he or she grows up and then strain every sinew to make it happen." Honoré believes we have turned childhood into a "race for perfection". "Children do not have enough time to play, think, experiment on their own. We seem to have swallowed the idea that more is more: so if some stimulation, organisation and pressure is good, then more must be better. Every moment of their lives is scheduled, monitored, supervised and measured (except when they're online or playing video games)."

Rowe says that children who feel pressured to live up to such high expectations from parents can suffer from anxiety, burn out and feelings of low self-esteem when, and if, they do 'fail' to succeed in their parent's chosen area. Later in life they may feel regret that they didn't pursue what they wanted to, or 'wasted' so much time trying to please a parent. This can turn to anger and bitterness."

Sometimes parents are in denial about their own children's talents: "trying to insist that their child is a piano 'prodigy' because she has Twinkle, twinkle down pat. Pushing ahead and trying to make your child something that they are not will create low self-esteem, feelings of failure and, later on, anger towards the parent. Additionally you could be missing out on something that your child shows a great talent and passion for," adds Rowe.

O'Callaghan frequently sees this kind of behaviour backfire on parents who are left feeling confused and guilty because they put "so much pressure on their children to perform and be productive that they are left completely disconnected emotionally from those they love and care for the most."

She advises talking to your child and finding out what they like to do best. "Once you know what is meaningful to your child you can arrange activities, conversations and tasks around this, which will bring quicker understanding and much better results" she says. "By listening, by being interested in their point of view and taking time to understand their developmental needs whilst keeping our feet firmly in the now, we are more able to achieve exactly what we are aiming for – the moment when we proudly reflect on being a part of the life of a happy, healthy, caring and satisfied adult, who has found success and comfort that is meaningful for them, that child you helped raise and nurture."

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Honoré says his slow parenting approach works by "allowing children to work out who they are rather than what we want them to be" and "slow parents understand that childrearing should not be a cross between a competitive sport and product-development. It is not a project; it's a journey. Slow parenting is about giving kids lots of love and attention with no conditions attached."